The wind in wilderness,
Kisses your lips,
The desolate shores,
Makes you weep.
O dear Oliver,
What made you beach,
Amidst the long evening shadows,
In this strange streak?
The curious little creature,
Near at hand,
Approaches you with caution,
With a little, yellow band.
He places it with love,
Over your flipper gash,
And returns to his father,
In a sporty dash.
He waits at a safe distance
As he expects you to walk,
But menacing larger creatures,
Attack with tooth from sharks.
Strange are the ways of nature,
That this creature runs in its vein,
Willingly it kills you for pleasure,
After tending your pain.
Categories:
ridley, allegory, allusion, analogy, animal,
Form: Personification
I was there for the "frenzy"
On the Padre Island shore
The day the park rangers
Set the tiny turtles free.
Eighty-eight babies
Struggled to the gulf,
And I was there to see.
They paddled and pushed their way
Toward the morning sun.
One hundred fifty watched--
I was only one.
A net extended over them,
Protection from the gulls.
Flags on long poles waving
Made the bandits mull.
The babes like bite sized cookies
Sanded with brown sugar.
They moved away with purpose,
Each one near the other.
In a decade the "arrabada"
Will follow a storm ashore.
Each will leave a "clutch" behind
Of maybe a hundred more.
Categories:
ridley, animal, beach, environment,
Form: Free verse
Fires burning, burning bright.
Not for warmth or even light.
Burning flesh seared to the bone.
Was this the sense of martyrdom?
Mary Tudor was the Queen,
return of Popery her dream.
Henry's child without a doubt,
her fathers deeds to turn about.
Men and women, loosing life,
butchers son and bakers wife.
Bishops, clerics, Lords and sires,
Not one spared the holy fires.
Thomas Cranmer was her aim,
he caused her mother so much pain.
Anne Boleyn's most errant knight,
causing Mary's own sad plight.
Hooper, Ridley, Cranmer too,
English folk, all good and true.
All subsumed to appease her bile,
sacrificed on the stakes woodpile.
Fourteen score souls finally died,
entering the flames with pride.
Heretics, each and every one.
Assured of joining God's own son.
As death became well-nigh routine,
The people cried God Save the Queen.
But they, in their hearts, were wary,
amongst themselves called her Bloody Mary.
Categories:
ridley, faith, history, religion,
Form: Ballad
Pondering impossible possibilities
mind collapsed in simple mazes
that refused to show path out
internecine walk abouts tiring
mouth agape,breath on tape
scourging for missing energies
ghoulish ghosts never spake
secrets intensed even with a lens
noir turned more, darkest thus far
riddle walked ridley speed in a creed
entered he was, could not escape
life he lead in there ,lived ,breathed and bred
biding with millions in doing rounds
like lost constellations
this is our life station!
Categories:
ridley, life
Form: Free verse